Design Your Universe
by Vallory Russups
Summary: When James kicks Harry (16) out, a school in a different dimension lures him in with the promise of knowledge. Weird magical abilities resurface, Minister Riddle schemes, Grindelwald spectacularly vanishes, and oh, did you know how tricky creature politics are? HPOMC HPTR PoliticalDarkHarry, creatures, Elemental Magic, rituals, intrigue, assassinations, games of seductions, Avalon.
1. Chapter 1 Something is Still Missing

Disclaimer: all the ideas and characters and pieces of magical theory that you don't recognise are most likely mine. If you need to borrow any of this, please ask first. The canon-verse belongs to Rowling.

Parings: HPTMR, HPOMC, SBSS, RLFG, RWHG, and many others, some important, others – not so much.

Summary: When James kicks Harry (16) out, a school in a different dimension lures him in with the promise of knowledge. Weird magical abilities resurface, Minister Riddle schemes, Grindelwald spectacularly vanishes, and oh, did you know how tricky creature politics are?

Political, intelligent, dark(ish) Harry.

Warnings: SLASH, AU, OOC, OCs, later will be filled with blood and torture and death (not so graphic though, I don't really like puke-worthy stuff), mentions and attempts of non-con (again - no graphic things), sex (but this will be mostly cut out of this site and moved to different ones, where MA is actually allowed). VERY long fic.

To Clear Things Up: Tom Riddle is a Minister of Magic. No, he hasn't been a Dark Lord officially, but who knows what's boiling under the surface? Lily dies giving birth to Harry, for which James blames the boy. After Lily's death, James's parents force him into a marriage of convenience with the Browns to boost up family fortune, and a year later it bears fruit – a baby girl Lavender, who thus becomes Harry's half-sister. Harry's stepmother dies a little while before the story starts. Regulus is alive, lives along with Sirius and Sirius's boyfriend Snape, who doesn't get along with Harry.

* * *

**Design Your Universe**

**By Forgotten Juliett**

* * *

Chapter 1. Something is Still Missing

* * *

It all started with a lost key.

At first, Harry didn't pay any attention.

His stepsister had run off with the crush of her life. His father was letting out some steam on an Auror mission and would probably return only to rave or drown his sorrows about the loss of his second wife in whatever alcoholic liquid he could find. His friends, Hermione and Terry Boot, were suddenly needed elsewhere, and Luna behaved as far-off as a star on the nightly shore. And Harry himself had to receive an Order of Circe, First Class from the Minister himself in a month's time.

All in all, life was busy.

"Hmm... Here it says to stir clockwise until the potion acquires a bluish tint," Harry read aloud, a huge, old, leather-bound potions volume in one hand and a stirring stick in the other. He frowned. Something didn't add up. He turned the page. Caught a short, inconspicuous paragraph at the end of it. Read it.

"But how can it be, when too many clockwise stirs lean the damn thing towards the pinkish side of the spectrum?"

Ah, out-dated Potions tomes. Ever the conundrum.

He couldn't begin to comprehend how people had fared with even less knowledge than Harry could access now.

Harry swept his private laboratory with a cursory glance. It landed on the wide storeroom filled with numerous vials, bottles and small pouches, all filled with healing herbs, extracts of venomous plants, pickled animal bits, and powders so mysterious to his father or Lavender but ordinary for Harry.

Distractedly whipping out his wand to direct it at the cauldron and charm the stirring stick to continue stirring, Harry walked over to the storeroom and rummaged through the top shelf.

_Should be somewhere in this direction... This? Oh no, these are harpy's feathers... Cat's eyes... Acromantula silk... Weird. I thought I'd run out of this stuff- Here!_

Like a victorious war general, Harry drew his hand out of the storeroom and raised it to the dim candlelight, inspecting the findings.

"Not first class, of course, but it will do," he decided loudly. Talking to himself helped him. It might be an annoying habit to some, but to Harry, who had been mostly ignored in his life, hearing his own voice was a blade-sharp reminder that he was still alive, still there, still a normal human, living, breathing, walking, talking.

He clutched the phoenix feather tighter.

Harry wished... He wished to make his father proud. He wished his father to sincerely hug him and praise him, not with those drawn-out, tired half-smiles and crooked grins, but ones filled with warmth and affection and love. The sort of tenderness James generously gifted Harry's half-sister, Lavender, with, the fruit of their shared father's second marriage with Acacia Brown.

_Some wishes are meant to remain wishes_, Harry told himself sternly even as he set the phoenix feather on the miniature table and diced a mandrake root. Precise movements. Level cuts. Perfect. _This man will never know pride in his own son even if that comes to bite him in his bony arse._

That's James Potter for you. Always the stubborn ass.

The cauldron bubbled and Harry rushed to it just in time to soothe the seething liquid with the smooth dices of the mandrake root, the last one in his stock.

_Need to buy some more_, a thought coursed through Harry's mind as he watched the potion in process devour the plant, quickly drowning it in its depths and depleting, and the root vanished in mere moments of Harry's silence.

He fingered the locket lying placidly on his collarbones, barely hidden by the black fabric of the collar of his black shirt.

When Lily Potter, Harry's mother and one true love of his father, had died, sweaty and panting and exhausted after giving birth to him, her only parting words had been to gift him with that locket, that it was a matter of utter importance and he must never part with it, because only that small crystal butterfly with the words _Crystal Spire _engraved on one of its exquisite wings in a silver delicate scribble could protect him.

Protect from what? Harry wanted to ask now, after the years had vanished into dust and all questions bumped right into the insurmountable barrier of the afterlife.

Alas, Lily Potter was long dead and all Harry could do was heed her words and wear the chain and the locket daily, no matter how girly it used to make him feel in the beginning, ages ago.

As lost in brooding as Harry was, when he raised his hand, the phoenix feather clutched tight in it and about to touch upon the surface of the potion, his fingers faltered and the bright red feather slipped out and fell, down, down, down, and all Harry could do was stare in paralyzed fear as the ingredient dropped, and the gooey mass engulfed it as it had the mandrake root minutes ago.

"_Protego_!" Harry cried out, bright green eyes wide with horror and urgency.

The wand _swoosh_ed in his hands to protect him from the impending doom of a potion mistake.

An explosion and a rash of mist – and Harry fell to the ground. His eyes closed.

At least, his shielding-charms knowledge ensured he _would_ wake up.

{**Design Your Universe**}

When he woke up, it wasn't pretty.

Harry cracked his eyes open, and white ceiling loomed into view, taunting him with its highness when Harry found out he had problems pushing himself off the floor. And speaking about floors...

Defeated, Harry propped his weight onto his elbows and surveyed his home potions lab.

A sticky substance of bright purple stuck to all the objects of furniture it could reach, from a spindly chair Harry used to sit on while stirring an experiment of his, to the lower half of the ingredients cabinet. The floorboards were covered with the disgusting slime as well as with the splinters of the table that had collapsed when the potion had consumed its legs. And that's not even starting on some glass shards from the vials with animal bits and small bottles of venoms and bloods, and the ingredients themselves: a wide range of intermingling flowers, powdered horns, feathers, and liquids, which had been precariously resting on the table.

Harry could understand Snape for once. Nothing could deal more damage than a fucked-up potion, especially when you mixed mandrake roots and phoenix feathers and slimeball's slime – the aggressive goo ate up even enchanted metal and only the safety spells Harry had cast on the floor, the walls and the doors of the cabinet prevented it from doing away with those, too, and burning to the lower floors, spreading right into James's room.

_Now, how do I fix it?_

When Harry moved upwards, determined to get on his feet, a strand of long black hair fell into his eye. Irritably, he blew it away from his face. Usually he tied the ebony black, long locks with a hair tie, but it had snapped, probably sometime during his fall or when he had lain unconscious.

His eyes swept the disaster with another long look.

_Charming. Just wait for James to see this. Tonight, I fear, will be full of spittle and splutter. He's going to be incensed-_

"Harry?" a voice shouted and a veneer of ice coated Harry's insides. Terror, shock, trepidation – the emotions burst and bubbled just under the surface of his outwardly calm countenance.

_He isn't supposed to be here! Just my luck. If this slime bucket Snape now comes too, I'll eat a galleon and choke to death._

"I heard an explosion. Are you all righ-"

It trailed off.

Harry pivoted on his heels and, like he would a particularly curious potions ingredient, observed his father.

"Yes, father," he murmured dutifully as he eyed the thinking process reflecting in the man's eyes while James was taking in the depressing wretch Harry had made out of his potions lab. "I'm all right. Thanks for asking, even though you look like you have fallen in love with this wrecked table – and no, a _Reparo_ won't make it – and don't seem to care much for my injuries."

James's face went red in blotches, the blush not spreading evenly like on someone else's face.

Harry's comment tore the man's face away from the splinters and the shards and onto his son's grimace of apology. It was not accepted.

James choked, but no noise escaped him. He pushed the sounds through his vocal cords, and yet the words refused to form, and he remained like this: standing in his ridiculous Auror outfit, hair nested on his head in a wild mess, and glasses askew from the running he must have done.

The man _needed _to calm down.

"Gobbledegook helps," Harry supplied quickly, helpfully. "If you know the numbers, that is. If you don't, this is a perfect opportunity to visit our home library – and yes, father, our house does have a library; has had it for years – and learn while I take care of-"

"Harry Potter." The deadly whisper could mean nothing good, Harry was certain of it. The certainty drummed in his chest with a fast-paced melody of doom.

He didn't hear his father's low voice often.

Now, he didn't want to, either.

"What. Has. Happened. Here," James forced out through clenched teeth, and Harry flinched, because the barely suppressed rage hurt him, grazed his forced calm and obliterated his wobbly self-esteem, and for a second he imagined himself as that lost little child, once more filled with longing for a meagre scrape of his father's attentions and affection, yet yielding under the disapproving sneer of his stepmother's and a smug smirk of his half-sister's.

"It was a potion," Harry explained simply. The truth was his best assistant here. "A searching potion. I lost my vault key a few days back, which gave me the idea. Besides, I wanted to best Snape and invent something mind-boggling, something... unique. There are no searching _potions_ invented yet."

James's eyes turned cold.

"Unique..." He tasted the word on his tongue, then spat, as if spewing out something distasteful, "It's your experiments again! How long are you planning to pursue those silly child's dreams instead of preparing for the adult life?"

Harry's lips thinned as he balled his fists and chanced a step forward. This conversation was neither the first nor the last. They had been going at it ever since Harry had expressed his desire to follow in his mother's footsteps and don on the Unspeakables' grey robes and sacrifice his private life to the wonders of modern research and furthering the horizons of magic, and stretch the boundaries of wizarding possibilities – all worth it, in the end.

"Explain 'adult life' for me, father dearest," Harry demanded. Occasionally, anger and bloodlust dominated his misted view of his father; betrayal, hurt – those he felt always. "Do you call 'adult life' running away to Egypt with a handsome boyfriend, like Lavender has done?"

A vein popped on the man's forehead as he stormed up to Harry to grab the teen's collar and hiss, "Your sister deserves your respect-"

Harry blathered on, undaunted.

"-Or, maybe, you prefer to define 'adult life' as the life your school mate Peter leads; a quaint existence in the arse of the Ministry – no friends, no wife, no progeny – although that last one is a life-saver; imagine if there were _two_ such Peters roaming the grounds of Wizarding Britain.-"

"Stop it here, Harry," James growled dangerously, hazel eyes burning into Harry's emerald green ones, but the flood of the small grudges swamped unstoppable.

"Or is it drinking yourself into oblivion, like _you_ have been doing lately?"

He earned a slap for this.

Harry shut up.

Raising a hand to his cheek – _Merlin, why does it tremble? It has no reason to. Absolutely no reason_ – Harry touched the smooth skin, right the very spot where he could feel the heat spreading.

A slap.

His _father_ had done it.

Harry knew he was not the favoured child, but this was pushing it too much.

"You slapped me," Harry said dumbly, unable to think of anything else to say. His mouth dried and hung open, and with fingers still lingering at the tender, rosy spot, he stared up at James's

The man solemnly nodded, his lips just as fine a line as Harry's own in reluctance or anger: a rare trait the parent and the child shared.

"You deserved it, Harry." The man threw the words like stones. His voice was hoarse and tired, as was his entire appearance: long hours of drinking alcohol interlinking with equally long missions had worsened James's condition. "You have no right to say such things of your family and family friends."

"If you knew me better, you would have noticed that I consider only yourself my family." Harry's gaze sharpened as he bit out, "And this might be reconsidered." The neglected child in him kicked and screamed in hysterics, reflected in the verdant eyes. "After Acacia's death, you are hardly a human, let alone a parent."

James exhaled. Slowly, as if about to make a difficult decision.

Harry scoffed and the sneer on his face deepened.

_I feel another punishment coming. I wonder if it's going to be another errands-boy quest to find him an alcoholic beverage or I should spend hours 'mending bridges' with the Weasleatte. Or clean the staircase without magic, which actually sounds more engaging than that last option. You'd think that after all these years a bout of creativity finally drops on him. _

"I disown you."

At first, Harry's mind couldn't grasp all the implications, all the meanings the words had.

He blinked. He faltered.

James held out a hand to prevent Harry from speaking, and, for the first time, the teen obliged.

"You've let me down with your attitude, Harry," James started, heaving a sigh. He ran a hand through his hair and seemingly ignored the way Harry's body tensed. "I- I don't know how to act around you anymore. You used to be such a darling in your childhood, always playing with Lavender and Ron and Ginny-"

"That was before, father," Harry whispered. His entire body was stiff, especially the back, and only fingers shook. _Before Ginny started to hit on me. Before Ron lashed out at me. Before you showed your preference of Lavender so clearly it blinded me._

James nodded at his words and went on, "-You looked up to Acacia, too-"

_Of course. She seemed so... motherly. Up until the time she realised I was better than her daughter and started ridicule and humiliate me._

"-and you took pride in visiting the Ministry with me when I had to drop in the Auror Department-"

_And _of course_ I enjoyed the longing glances you threw every time we passed the Department of Mysteries where mother used to work. It was _so _exciting hearing you sigh and seeing you glare at me, blaming me for something I had no desire to do and had no control over._

All those thoughts running through his mind clogged in his throat.

"-yet now... Now, I don't feel a connection to you anymore," James exhaled the words earnestly, the emotions shining over the bags around his eyes and the exhaustion covering every inch of his body.

"And so you have decided to throw me to the wolves, figuratively speaking – or, speaking normal language, kick me out into streets," Harry commented scathingly. His fingernails dug into the palms and left half-moon-shaped marks.

James blanched, as if dealt a mortal blow. Then, the expression cleared, and the tired demeanour returned with vengeance and bled into the man's hunched posture.

"Not in the streets," he mumbled, escaping Harry's condemning eyes. "You can live at Sirius's-"

"Tell this to his boyfriend," Harry spat as he felt the earlier confusion merge and amplify with rage. "I'd love to see you telling Snape I'm going to disrupt their lovers' nest. I am bad at poisons. _He_ is not."

James stepped back. "I- Well- There are other people, too, right? Hermione and Terry Boot, your friends-"

"Small house."

"Luna Lovegood?"

Harry sneered and, flinging out his wand in irritation, threw a blasting curse on the goo of the failed potion which had crept to his polished boots and had been about to lick them with its acidic tongue.

"Why don't you propose the Malfoys for a good measure?"

James's face spotted with red once again, to Harry's surge of vindictive pleasure, before the hazel gaze steeled with resolve and the hunched back straightened into an ideally level line.

"You will find a way," he stated in a simple fashion and surveyed the lab. The acidic gunk had gobbled up most of the ingredients lying around and was placidly unmoving, probably satisfied with the amount of destruction it had caused. "You are resourceful, Harry. Aren't you going to receive an Order of Circe on September, 1st? The reward for the most intelligent and record-breaking students?"

Harry didn't reply to James's shy grin, which died down at the unwelcoming reaction.

"So what do you expect me to do? Just take it as inevitability and flee?" Harry asked in anger. He directed his wand at James. "If you push me, I will never forgive you, father. I'm good at holding grudges. Even Snape envies me sometimes." He sneered. "Although you are not that far behind him in childishness."

"You have no other choice. You are too... different. Your experiments, your stand-offish attitude, your animosity..." James shot him a look of reproach. "I don't know what has gone wrong while I was raising you-"

"_You_ didn't raise me," Harry hissed and cast an exploding spell on the wall just behind James. A huge fragment of it blew up. James fearfully cringed before extinguishing the small fire that the hemline of his Auror robe had caught. "I raised myself. _You_ were never there."

"And this is another proof why you need a lesson in humility." James shook his head. "You are unstable, Harry. You lack both respect and common sense. You criticise your sister and Headmaster, spit on the memories of your step-mother, backchat me-"

Harry steeled himself, feeling that a final blow was coming.

"-Lily would have been disappointed in you."

"Or perhaps she would be disappointed in _you_. I would have loved to hear my mother's opinion on how you have just disposed of the annoying child by kicking him out into the streets. She would feel _so_ honoured to be your wife."

With those words, Harry stamped out of the lab.

"Remember: you have two hours to pack up, until I go on the mission and lock you out of the wards!" the warning haunted him.

He couldn't bear being here anymore.

{**Design Your Universe**}

Harry had never felt as alone as now. He utterly lacked any available options to choose from; the streets were literally his only refuge now.

As he walked through the crowd in Diagon Alley – did all those people live there? Whenever he visited the place, the mob of wizards was enormous – Harry ran through all the potential candidates to host him.

Terry Boot and Hermione, the Boots' adopted muggleborn daughter, one of the many child muggleborns who had been taken from their muggle families and adopted into the wizarding ones, all thanks to Minister Riddle's orders, were Harry's closest friends, but lived in a family of bookworms who were perfectly satisfied with a small house and lack of riches.

No, those two were out.

Luna Lovegood?

Indeed, the girl was a semi-friend of his, one of the few people whom his snaps and scowls didn't deter and who had insisted on socialising with him until Harry's mind recognised her as a friend.

But they weren't close enough for her to let him in.

Another one – out.

Regulus and Sirius?

Both lived in a spacious house, but, unfortunately, as an unwanted bonus, came with Snape in tow. Harry honestly couldn't submit himself to the constant torture of lemony grimaces, cutting insults, crude power games, and the like.

Out of question.

And Harry couldn't afford even renting a room of his own, not even for the month it took before Hogwarts.

All Harry really wanted was research, but somehow-

He had a hunch it wasn't going to work out.

What did that leave him with?

{**Design Your Universe**}

Gringotts Goblin Bank emerged through the haze of Harry's wondering melancholy.

Harry halted in his footsteps, then shrugged and neared the bank: he needed a new vault key for his empty vault anyway, so why not take care of the business now?

His robe now clean instead of the potions-covered one he had thrown away after the experiment gone awry, his hair somewhat combed and tied into a low ponytail, and the face impassive, Harry walked into Gringotts.

"What can we do for you, sir?" the goblin at the counter spewed out the 'sir' as if it were a curse.

Polite smiles didn't work with goblins, so Harry didn't bother.

Not that he ever bothered with those anyway.

"I've lost the key to my vault," Harry said bluntly even though his eyes were trained on the neat piles of rubies on the goblin's scale. If only he could reach his hand... "I wish to remake it."

The goblin looked up from his heavy office book to eye Harry with mistrust.

"Name? And no funny business, boy," the creature warned him. A grimace of distaste flickered across Harry's face.

_Goblins. Ever the paranoid._

"Harry Potter. The vault is number-"

"The blood test will show what the number of your vault is," the goblin interrupted with as much disgust as he could manage as he grabbed the scale – the rubies still gleamed attractively – and the office book and tucked them into the space under the counter. "What, did you think we would believe your word?"

"Blood test is pushing it a bit," Harry said fake-nonchalantly, a frown begging to form on the forehead. "Blood can be used in many rituals. How do I know you are going to use it only for the purpose of making the key?"

If possibly, the goblin's sneer intensified. The creature's beady eyes glowered at the human as the mutilated face with a scar running down the cheek screwed up in a grimace.

"Humans. Always with the idiotism. Boy, if you believe we use the blood we are given from wizards – and believe me, there is a plenty of butterfingers like you stumbling in here every day – you think we are staying in this servitude out of pleasure?"

"Who knows, perhaps you are a race of latent masochists?" Harry shot back, fingering his locket.

The goblin stared at him with a startled frown marring his face. When Harry raised an eyebrow and prompted, "Key? Now?", the creature shook his head and scorned him.

"Not so fast, wizard boy." He extended a tiny hand with wrinkled skin and blackened fingers and fingernails, the latter twisted in an unnatural form at unnatural angles. "One galleon."

"What for?" Harry demanded, although his mind supplied him with an answer. Well, needless mulishness was another trait of his; James's, too. "You will be taking my _blood_. You will be prodding my finger with a needle and drawing blood. Don't I get some sort of a moral compensation?"

"No gold, no key."

Harry fulminated the goblin with a glare but didn't dare talk back this time.

_Greedy old farts. Would it kill you to leave a single galleon to a boy? Obviously._

Whipping a pouch out of his charmed bag that contained his matchstick-charmed trunk among other things, Harry fingered the scant coins through the thin fabric and pulled one of them out, handing it to the goblin with a sour frown.

"Here you are." When Harry saw the goblin inspecting it with masterful hands and spells, he added, "Don't insult me; it is real. I'm not as suicidal as to trick a goblin."

"As long as you know this, good for you," the goblin approved before spinning and with an irritated jerk motioning for Harry to follow. "The Blood Chamber, now."

_Doesn't it sound ominous?_ Harry mused, strutting after the creature to the entrance of a tunnel he had never noticed.

Unlike the tunnel with the carts and the vaults deep down, this one hosted doors. Many, many of them. Gold plaques announced the residence of this or that Department or Chamber, and for the first time Harry was hit with a thought that the way the bank functioned was a complete mystery to him and to the rest of the wizarding population.

Was there a Head of all this brilliance, a ruler, or any kind of hierarchy at all? Where did the goblins eat and sleep? Harry had never heard of the existence of some goblin quarters or goblin restaurants and cafeterias... Did they have females? Again, he had never caught sight of a goblin female or a goblin child.

A mystery. Harry loved mysteries.

The short journey they spent in silence.

It was broken with a snap only when they arrived to a door which didn't differ at all from the others, and the goblin made a sign for Harry to step inside. With only a touch of uncertainty marring his otherwise resolved palette of feelings, Harry did as told.

{**Design Your Universe**}

The Chamber was empty.

It also didn't differ much from the vaults – a cavern of a kind, small, cold, and dark, albeit clean, with no animal waste or dirt inside.

The only object of furniture was a wooden chair proudly standing on three legs, with the fourth one half-broken and dangling. Harry's upper lip curled. He was supposed to sit on _that_?

"What did you expect?" the goblin entered after him and saw the degrading look Harry tossed the chair and the general lack of furniture. "Marble and gold? Humans are so presumptuous. It is a small ritual, for which nothing serves but the parchment and the blood. This room provides privacy only and nothing more."

"I can believe this," Harry muttered before demanding, "So? The key? I didn't pay you the money for talking."

"This." The goblin conjured up a piece of parchment and held it out for Harry to clutch. The parchment was empty. "Here you will drop the blood and then there will appear the words pertaining to the heritage you have and all the benefits that come with it. And all the property and vaults you own, of course."

"So, this is the proof that one owns this or that vault," Harry needlessly surmised, tapping his chin with a finger. "It helps detect the impostors and anyone who claims to own something they don't."

Harry took out his wand and cast a mild cutting hex on his finger, shoving the parchment beneath the blood that trickled down. The red of the drops contrasted beautifully with the yellowish material.

The blood staining the parchment started twisting and expanding, taking on another shape. Moments later Harry found himself staring down at the basic facts of his biography.

_Name: Harry Aliah Potter_

_Mother: Lily Maeve Potter nee Evans (deceased)_

_Father: James Charlus Potter_

_Race: [can't be read]_

_Currently Owned Vaults: Harry Potter Vault 375; Evans Vault 522._

_Lordship: heir to the House of Potter, [can't be read]_

Two things discomfited Harry about this entire matter.

First, why the hell couldn't half the information be read? Wasn't goblin magic supposed to be like elfish – alien to wizards but truthful, one which couldn't be meddled with?

"Seems like someone has toyed with your blood, wizard boy. Didn't you insist on never being so careless as to give someone a sample? It shouldn't have been possible otherwise."

Okay, that one was answered. And Harry's brain would pick apart the implications later, when this bizarre ordeal was over with.

And secondly...

"Evans vault..." he whispered. The goblin eyed him with a sneer as the teen fiddled with the locket dangling from his neck. Suddenly, Harry drew up and ordered sharply, "Take me to it. I want to see."

The goblin scoffed. "I want to do many things, too, but you don't see me wandering around throwing orders, wizard boy."

The creature didn't move an inch.

Not in the mood for such games, Harry crouched to be on the same eye-level with the goblin and pitched his voice dangerously low as he spoke, "You will take me there. Right now." He brought a hand up to the creature's receding hair and pulled. "If not, I can already tell you that a Sun Amulet and my own skills protect me from whatever you dish out immediately and my godfather is Lord Black, so it will protect me from anything you throw at me in the long run. Oh, and I'm good with curses."

"You foolish wizards fear this place called Azkaban," the goblin stated after a long pause.

A deceptively gentle smile bloomed on Harry's face.

"My father doesn't hate me enough to actually send me there. Besides, do you think people would rather believe a sub-human or a prefect with perfect marks and who is about to receive a reward from the Minister himself for trumping half the OWL records?"

{**Design Your Universe**}

"Vault 522," the goblin announced in a monotone.

Harry nodded and stepped out of the card, for the first time feeling hesitance embrace him. When he was paces away from the door, he halted and raised his hand to touch the necklace. Its smooth, cool surface gave him energy and power to amble forward.

Harry twisted the key and pushed the door open.

The vault was dark.

Even darker than the Blood Chamber before. No torches, no any other sources of light.

A shudder rushed up Harry's spine.

His eyes swept through the vault and caught sight of the only object: a moderately large wooden box in the very centre of the room. Harry marched up to it and dropped on the cold stony ground to reverently bring his shaking hands to touch the coarse surface of the box.

Cradling it to his chest for a second, as if feeling memories and warmth and love speeding up into him from the plain object, Harry was forced to break his reverie at the dry deriding cough of the goblin behind.

The spell shattered.

"Leave me," he ordered coldly.

"Gladly." The smile the creature flashed was full of teeth. "We come check the place for thieves once every twenty years. I hope we won't forget this corner of bank this time."

"You know what I mean and must obey." There was an oath binding goblins to their customers and Harry used it.

"Unfortunately," the goblin spat and strode out of the vault, closing the door behind him. Harry was alone.

Slowly and carefully, Harry set the box on the ground and lifted the lid.

He did a double-take.

_Well, this certainly isn't what I was expecting._

Lily had been an Unspeakable fiercely devoted to her job, so Harry had expected to find a sheaf of parchment and muggle paper, all filled with notes on various inventions, instructions on potions-making and spell creation, tables of properties, maybe even hints on the whereabouts of hidden treasures-

Never this.

The array of objects was as diverse as they came.

The largest of them was a leather-bound journal. When Harry cautiously untied the coarse bows, he opened the journal and flipped through the pages, but to his bitter disappointment, the entire thing was covered with a string of incomprehensible scribbles in a language Harry hadn't heard of.

_Should research this one. These are not runes, at least, so nothing nasty like blindness or mutilation will happen if I read it._

Harry set it back into the box and pulled out the next object: a... cup. Yes, a wooden cup.

Harry stared at it for a second. The cup stared back.

_Perhaps mother needed it for a DoM experiment?_

Then, out of the corner of his eye, while placing the cup into the box, he spied an elegant velvet box of rich blue colour.

He opened it and found a set of earrings made of something looking suspiciously like diamonds. They sparkled at him.

Harry inspected the jewellery.

_Now, at which price do I sell them?_

The recollection that these had once belonged to his mother tore Harry out of the clutches of his stupor and the teen shook his head in self-disgust, strands of black hair falling into his face.

_I can't. I will wear them as a remembrance of her. They are going to make a nice set with the locket, hmm? Besides, they shine prettily..._

And speaking of shiny things...

Harry's gaze fell on a ritual knife with a ragged blade. It was very simple, with a black handle, and the teen had seen this sort of knives in a book on obscure arts he had snitched in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library.

Harry shied away from touching it.

He had read that if a ritual knife didn't accept you as its master, then the person who dared place their hands on it would be butchered into pieces. Magic didn't take kindly to thieves, real or presumed.

The teen diverted his attention to the other objects in the box but was disappointed: a few shards of glass, a bottle of indigo mist, five rainbow-coloured leaves which somewhat resembled maple ones, a full bottle of Felix Felicis, two bottles of unknown content (one of them mostly empty and the other of a rich red colour), a diamond, and an amethyst.

No money, no truly personal things like photos or letters or even pieces of parchments with Lily's handwriting on them...

And yet, Harry's day had brightened, his findings of today chasing away the uncertainty and fear of the future, energising him, lending him the force to move on and seek ways out of the situation his father had thrown him in.

Those were the things that had once belonged to his mother, however puzzling they were.

_But... What do I do next?_


	2. Chapter 2 Drowning in a Sea of Uncertai

Disclaimer: all the ideas and characters and pieces of magical theory that you don't recognise are most likely mine. If you need to borrow any of this, please ask first. The canon-verse belongs to Rowling.

Author Notes: Hello and thank you for your reviews! I appreciate them.

Before I forget: this story won't concentrate on a super magically powerful Harry. True, he'll be more than average in this regard, and have a special ability or two, but this story features an Inventor!Harry mostly. Yes, this means that he's more likely to use potions, trinkets, and magical stones and talismans of his own creation rather than simply hurl a burst of magic at a nuisance and be done with it. I wanted to throw that in before you get to the middle of the story and realise that he isn't as magically powerful as some other characters, including Tom and Dumbledore. His strengths lie in a different field.

* * *

Chapter 2. Drowning in a Sea of Uncertainties

* * *

It was a common piece of knowledge that when in doubt, turn to Hermione Granger.

"If idiocy were a lethal decease, you would have been six feet under in your early childhood," Hermione said mildly at his recount of the previous events. A delicate tea cup rested in her fingers as she took a calm sip.

Harry gaped at her.

"He disowned me!" he insisted at the same time as Terry Boot, Hermione's adopted brother, entered the lounge with a tray full of drool-worthy snacks on it. "My own father-!"

"I don't believe he did," Hermione interrupted Harry's starting spiel and frowned, setting the china tea cup on her lap. "Just think about it, Harry: it was a spontaneous decision brought on by a lack of sleep – the man had spent _days_ hunting 'Dark' wizards who turned out to be teenagers experimenting with compulsion charms! – and grief for his late wife- _Second_ dead wife, if I must remind you."

"I agree on this one, mate," Terry put in his five cents as he dropped next to Harry on the modest couch of the Boots' dwelling. "If you return to him, and he's already thought 'bout it and all, he's probably going to forgive you."

"I haven't done anything to forgive." Harry's emerald-green eyes flashed with a surge of anger. His eyes flickered to Terry, who was scratching the back of his head in hesitance, before stopping on Hermione, who was watching him as unfazed as ever, with only perhaps a tint of disapproval swimming in her brown eyes.

He slouched and groaned.

Hermione and Terry weren't siblings in the common sense of world, yet their constant mutual agreement indicated otherwise.

When Tom Riddle had first been appointed Minister, the man's first decree had been to amplify the gap between the muggle world and the wizarding one – and can you find a better way to do it than steal muggleborns at the first hint of accidental magic to later force them into halfblooded and pureblooded families?

Hermione had been one of the first children to go through this procedure, thus growing up in the Boot household alongside Terry. At the age of fifteen, she had been given a choice whether to keep her surname as 'Boot' or change it to her muggle one, and she had chosen the latter, in respect to the biological parents she had never seen but who had given birth to her.

Not that they remembered. Obliviators never slacked off: their proficiency was on the tip of the tongue of even a hag living in a wild forest and-

Harry forced his thoughts to return to the matters of _his_ life.

_His_ father...

From the beginning of his childhood, James's unforgiving glares weighted down on Harry, on the teen's conscience and on his view of the world. Lily, Harry's mother had died giving birth to him, and in the man's mind that immediately turned Harry into an unwitting murderer from the first breath he had drawn.

Aggravating, that was.

His stepmother never helped matters either – the late Acacia Brown, mother of Lavender, had been an envious wench with no other purpose in life than nag and preach and blame and criticise. After her unexpected death – rather tragic, Harry supposed, strangling his slight guilt – he had felt no claws of remorse tearing at him, no tears gathered in the corners of his eyes, no grief raking his body.

Not unexpected, considering what he had done.

And James...

"I will not return," Harry found himself saying through a haze of remembrance. Terry shot him a sharp look and Hermione cocked her head, urging him to elaborate. "Whatever you say, I won't go back until he _begs_ me. Yes, he's going through a crappy patch in life now, yes, I made it worse by destroying half the house with my experiments, yes, I should be patient and understanding and kind- But he disowned me. Even if in words only, without making it legal, these are still his words and he uttered them." Harry lifted his chin. "And don't you try to dissuade me, Hermione."

Hermione regarded him for a long moment, her intelligent brown eyes gleaming and weighting and calculating. Harry only scowled at the stare. He hated it, this kind of look.

His attention was snapped by Terry, who laid a reassuring hand on his lap and tossed him a small grin.

"We won't," he calmed Harry down; his voice soothing and low in quality, lulling Harry with its velvety notes. "At least-" Here Terry shot Hermione a pointed look. "-_I_ won't. You're better off with Luna's Snorkacks rather than with this father of yours."

"Boys!" Hermione exclaimed in irritation before huffing. "This is a serious discussion. Surely you can hold off for a moment and not bring any of those silly creatures Lovegood is always rambling on and on about?"

Particles of ice swam in Harry's eyes and made them stand out on his face even more, pools of emerald silent fury against the pale complexion. He leaned his head in a dangerous tilt, and when he spoke, the voice was bereft of any warmth, "She is my friend, too, Hermione."

Softly. He always spoke softly when annoyed or aggravated, and his friends – or anyone who bothered to look – always sorted those instances of his loud rage apart from the rare moments when coldness engulfed him in its protective mantle and replaced all the positive parts of his thinking and of his feelings.

Hermione flinched, as if from a slap, her body suddenly shrinking and becoming small and frail, which reminded Harry sharply that she was a female and his friend, and he should _really _tone down on the frost at times.

But he didn't apologise. His words rang true; suffering had merged with Luna's life in her early years, and if he could diminish the burden she carried – he would do it.

Protection often meant more than flinging spells at bullies, after all.

"But where will you go?" Hermione pleaded at last and leaned forward. Her bushy hair fell on her face and shielded one half of it before she blew the annoying strands away. "You can stay with us, I suppose, but our parents-"

"I'll think of something," Harry muttered. Indeed, he had had some time to think it over, and the premonition twined with a sick sort of anticipation at the step he was about to take.

Terry clasped his shoulder in a tight grip. Hermione gasped and covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes suddenly alight with realisation.

"I know this look." She regained her bearings and straightened before her glare stabbed Harry like a sharp dagger would. "Harry Potter, I demand you tell me immediately of whatever plan is running through this mind of yours!"

As Harry raised an unimpressed eyebrow, to his side Terry snorted into his fist which concealed the entirety of his tanned face sans the glinting brown eyes – a trait the 'siblings' shared.

"Careful, 'Mione. Your inner dictator is seeping through," Terry warned jokingly and dodged Hermione's threatening fist.

"So?" the girl urged, in that deadly tone of voice that threw Malfoy off his high horse and made flowers wither in the pots.

"Please, Hermione, you have never mothered me, so let's not stoop to this now either, all right?" Harry asked as he pulled his face into a disgusted grimace before it cleared, and he continued after a sigh escaped his lips. "About my plan... I must warn you: it's hazy at best. Uncertain. Foggy. Whatever other adjectives you can think of- Well, anyway... You know my intelligence is decent-"

"Hello, Captain Obvious," Terry muttered and popped a sweet from the tray on the table into his eager mouth. He lifted a book from a coffee table nearby and stuck his nose in, although Harry knew that one half of him listened and memorised.

"Sneaking in to watch muggle contraptions again?" Harry asked without real interest but hoping to distract Hermione. His plan resembled Holland cheese at the moment, holes and all. Embarrassment coursed through his body at the idea of introducing it, in its newborn stage, to Hermione's brilliant mind and Terry's critical views, and then endure the scepticism and mocks.

"It's illegal," Hermione automatically supplied. _Oh. So, distraction tactics work sometimes._

"Who cares?" Terry shrugged. "Every invention, every event, even muggle ones, make up our world's history. And living history is no less exciting than experiencing it in books and archives and whatever else."

"Your obsession with history will be your downfall," Harry reprimanded mildly.

"Harry," Hermione scolded, shooting him a warning look. Harry ignored the twinge of resentment that spiked in him. Yes, he remembered. "_You_ of all people have no right to speak of obsessions."

Her voice cut through the peaceful atmosphere and split it in two, violently, quickly.

Harry gritted his teeth and willed himself to let it lie, like he had done for many years. There were instances when friends only irritated him, and during such moments he imagined himself a potion bubbling in the cauldron: seething, boiling, but held under the careful surveillance and controlling hands of a master, and thus still confined in the cauldron. And the temptation to slip out was always strong, but every time Harry would brace himself and convince his mind that his friends hadn't done anything to deserve his anger, however temporary.

Besides, this time, if what Harry was thinking about would come to pass... He would miss his friends. For a long while.

"So? Do you want to hear me out or not?" Who cared if his voice came out too snarky and sharp, diverting Terry's attention from his history tome and sending shivers run down Hermione's spine?

Darkness mixed with danger under the cold surface of his face, the concoction too forceful and strong to remain cramped at all the times, and sometimes Harry's _other _side bled through. Times like those, everyone knew to keep their distance. There was a reason Harry's friends were almost nonexistent.

"I- Sorry," Hermione mumbled and forced her eyes away from him. _Good. She knows the staring annoys me but continues doing it all the same. _

Harry sighed. It had long since become his favourite pastime. Oh, along with casually scheming Snape's murder, and Lavender's 'accidents', and James's misfortunes at work, and ways to ward off Ginny Weasley. Not to mention contemplating the height of cruelty he had committed recently, which he didn't deem a cruelty at all... but _that_ was a lifestyle.

"_I_ should be sorry for losing control of my emotions like this. Again." Terry returned to the book while Hermione set aside the cup with the tea gone cold long ago, and waited patiently for him to reveal his course of actions. "As I was saying, Hogwarts is starting to become tedious anyway. The classes are hardly challenging; we can easily learn all this stuff from books in our free time, not to mention that we can't practice magic outside of classrooms, which leaves us with plenty of theory only. They should think about raising their standards."

"Oh, Harry." Hermione shook her head and the brown hair rippled over her shoulders. "There are few people who breeze through the curriculum. If you haven't noticed, although I have no trouble, and _you _even less so, Seamus Finnigan still burns down every object we have to spell in Charms, Neville still blows up his cauldron in every Potions class – Snape was livid that one time when his robes got on fire, too – and Ron Weasley still can't fathom that when Professor McGonagall says something, she means it, and no amount of stubbornness can make him into an Animagus without special lessons."

"And we don't even get started on 'Puffs," chimed in Terry, looking up from his book for a second before returning to it. Hermione solemnly nodded in agreement.

"I understand what you are trying to say, Harry, but you can't leave Hogwarts!"

"Why?" Harry smiled. His smile was moonlight-cold, distant yet with a detached beauty shining through.

Make them understand...

He had imagined the chore to be easier.

Hermione's eyes darted to a side and back to him in a wary, weary dance.

"What about the award? Order of Circe, First Class, Harry! The only award higher would be the Order of Merlin but this one is given for heroics, not for the studiousness and diligence."

Harry waved it off, crossing his legs. "It's given to me simply for a potion I invented. I only have to be at the ministerial ball scheduled for the 25th and receive it, but this doesn't tie me to Hogwarts." He sent her a sharp look. "I am free to leave whenever I wish."

"And what about the person who awards the Orders?" Hermione insisted and pushed a lock of hair away from her face with an impatient, irritated gesture. "The Minister, Harry! Tom I-am-a-stuck-up-bastard Riddle himself is going to hand it to you!"

"And? Again, it doesn't change anything. True, this award goes to me because of something I did in Hogwarts, but I can receive it and then go on my merry way to another school." Harry paused before his lips quirked. "Senex Academia, for instance."

Hermione's eyes widened and looked ready to jump out of their sockets, while Terry dropped the book he had been holding to stare at Harry, mouth hung open.

Harry faced it all with a calm expression.

Finally, Hermione took a deep breath and loudly exhaled through her mouth, her eyes closing for a fleeting moment. When she opened them again, her gaze dug into Harry with the force of hundreds of enchanted needles.

"It is a legend," she said firmly, with conviction lacing every word she spoke. At this, Harry inclined his head and waited for her to expand. "A mere myth, Harry. If you believe in this, you might as well believe that the land Merlin discovered, the magical island Avalon, actually exists."

"Do you doubt Merlin?" Harry asked innocently, ignoring the frustration brewing inside him. That silly creature!

"I- Harry, not every piece of his biography is actually true." Hermione sniffed and crossed her arms over her chest. She resembled a goose with her bushy hair, puffed out chest, and pursed lips. "The idea is ridiculous. I thought you'd choose a school like Durmstrang or Beauxbatons-"

"Neither is good enough," Harry interrupted sharply. "Years back, before Riddle became Minister – perhaps these schools would have trumped Hogwarts. But should I remind you of all the innovations he has introduced in the educational system? The man is a genius. Although old Dumbledore-"

"Professor Dumbledore."

"-is still the Headmaster, and thus Hogwarts isn't Riddle's turf-"

"An underestimation," Terry piped in. "The old fossil can still pack a political punch. If Riddle mucks about in Hogwarts of all places, poor bloke'll be ripped apart, Minister or not."

"-you know that even the old codger couldn't deflect some of the adjournments in the curriculum." Harry stomped down the exasperation that was building up in him. "For instance, years ago there was this subject called 'Muggle Studies', which has transformed into Wizarding Studies. Then, the level of the material has boosted up, too. If back in '60s few Hogwarts alumni won international tournaments, now the numbers are steadily increasing. Not least because more useful material is introduced, and some of the subjects previously optional – like the Care of Magical Creatures – became compulsory, while Astronomy, on the other hand, moved to being an optional subject like Arithmancy."

"Exactly." Hermione nodded and her lips stretched into a hopeful smile. "See? There is no need to leave Hogwarts at all, Harry. You will-"

"Do you listen to me at all?" Harry bit out, exasperated with her insistence and the unwillingness to back down, for Merlin's sake. "It's still not ideal. From what I've heard of Senex Academia, the standards there are higher. The library is larger." His lips twisted into a smirk. "The students are more dangerous and thrilling to be around, too. No more whining Daddy-wannabes like Malfoy or little runty stalkers like Creepy."

"Creevy," Hermione corrected him with a twitch of her lips. A second later she replaced it with a scowl. "You adrenaline junkie! Honestly, is danger all you ever think about?"

"I'm adventurous at heart," Harry purred and his body language spoke of tales of nightly escapades and pleasant midnight duels. "Hogwarts students usually have all the grace of a waltzing dragon. They can hardly beat me at intelligence and I would rather train 'till I'm blue than let them thrash me in a duel."

"How are you planning to find this Avalon legend anyway?" Hermione changed the subject. She tugged at her skirt, as if uninterested and already deeming Harry a lost cause. "And found out about Senex Academia."

Oh, wouldn't they be surprised to know?

Harry tilted his head and felt his lips stretch in a mocking smile.

"Binns."

Hermione blinked. Terry looked up from his book and blinked.

"Umm... Sorry to break it to you, Harry, but-"

"Oh, it's not like he stopped me in the hallway and invited me to a pleasant chat over some ghostly tea and crumpets, all the while recounting his old days." Harry snorted at the image of the owlish dead professor doing exactly that. "I came across the Academia in a book during his lesson, so I simply stayed behind and asked him whether he could share titbits of knowledge concerning this... discovery of mine. He told me."

It had been so simple to find trails leading to the legendary Avalon... Then again, Harry supposed the school didn't truly hide, because from Binns's tales, they had more than enough resources to vanish off the face of the earth completely.

Yet, they hadn't done it.

Wasn't it a sign then? Some sort of destiny?

"All right," Hermione relented at last. "Say I believe you. Say this Avalon and this Senex Academia do exist. How are you going to get there?"

Harry couldn't hold back an excited grin. "Goblins."

His friends pulled disbelieving grimaces. For the umpteenth time, Harry repressed a surge of anger at their continuous disbelief in him and his reasoning. Would it hurt to be supportive? He was trying to pile up as much optimism as he could muster, and they were steadily demolishing every wall of determination and courage he built.

"Binns said creatures have a stronger tie to Avalon than humans," Harry explained despite it. His friends deserved an explanation. "And for a few shiny sickles, goblins can do almost anything. Binns explained that you can ask for a portkey in Gringotts and then it'll whisk you off to the island. There, it's fairly easy to find the Academia. It doesn't do owl-mail, unfortunately, so you have to talk with the administration in person."

"And when are you going to visit the place?" Hermione asked suspiciously.

"Today," Harry replied silkily and rose from the comfy sofa.

{**Design Your Universe**}

Harry decided to treat himself to Fortescue's best ice cream before plunging into the danger that was his first outing to Avalon – hopefully not his last.

He watched wizards pass by, some rushing, some ambling, others strutting like they owned the place. The colours of their summer robes all merged into a kaleidoscope of styles and garments, all unique and diverse, each ensemble a reflection not only of a wizard's or witch's sense of style but their personality and inner world as well.

Their hairstyles and accessories all matched, too, and created a semblance of a daytime carnival ramping about in the hidden street of London: here came a gentlemanly old wizard with a mad-hatter hat and bright yellow robes covered with splotches of blue. Not far from him, a middle-aged woman stormed out of the apothecary, ranting, with a cat perched upon her head and a purely bronze cane clutched tightly in her fist as she swung it back and forth, bickering with a friend about the insanely high prices of basilisk bits. A group of children stood nearby, all giggling and pointing at the floating feathers in front of the wizarding stationery...

Although he had been born in this world, he still couldn't shake off this sensation of _magic_ washing over him every time he visited Hogsmeade or Diagon or any other magical gathering. It was fantastic. Magnificent. Alluring.

And yet, today the allure was lost on him, with his mind being weighed down by a myriad of things, each of which demanded careful attention and consideration, and hours' worth of contemplation. All thoughts tumbled around his mind, all of them vanishing when he attempted to reach for one.

One of Hermione's phrases turned over and over in his head, sticking in his mind and refusing to leave.

"You_ of all people have no right to speak of obsessions."_

Truth hurt, always.

And the truth was that Harry obsessed over Tom Riddle.

Harry allowed the pleasant din of the alley and the parlour whirl him away and into his misty childhood memories, the times when that delicate situation of his sprouted.

{**Design Your Universe**}

"_I don't like them!" Harry proclaimed loudly as he tugged at the sleeves of his new dress robes. They were constricting and dull and he didn't like the colour. Black. Why did his stepmom always make him wear black? If she was a weird mix of a fairy tale hag and goth at heart, it didn't give her the right to influence him, too! _

_Acacia Brown, a woman of many talents that didn't include mothering a child, spared the tiny boy standing on a stool a sharp glance._

_James tried to be diplomatic._

"_Harry, dear, umm... It's a funeral. I understand you like green and hate black, but-"_

"_She _always_ makes me do things I don't want to, Daddy," Harry complained and puffed out his lower lip. "And you are beginning to act like her, too. Always listening to her and doing as she tells. You are a toe-rag, Daddy."_

_Frost entered James's hazel eyes and he dug his fists into his sides, assuming the pose of a sugar-bowl. Harry bit his lips, realising he had slipped and annoyed his father somehow – which happened frequently, mind you, but still didn't bring any enjoyable consequences – and turned his head away. His eyes caught Madame Malkin's sympathetic look._

"_Now, young man, this is no way to talk to your father," the Auror hissed, while Harry glimpsed Acacia's satisfied smirk. "Take a leaf out of Lavender's book for once and behave."_

_Harry whipped his head to his half-sister, curly-haired and blue-eyed, as she bubbled happily on the stool next to his and let Madame Malkin's assistant adjust her newly made robes._

_Bright pink robes. Not black._

_Tears stung in Harry's, but he forced them down, down, down, like he had been doing his entire life._

_It was unfair._

_Beyond unfair._

_Not that he wanted _pink_ robes, of course._

_Why couldn't his father announce him as an example for once, not his sister? Instead, James always retained that vaguely disgusted and majorly indifferent look while talking to Harry, as if preserving the sanctity of warm smiles and laughs and bear hugs for Harry's half-sister._

_Out of the two, people always seemed to choose her._

_The doors opened with the jingle of the bell. The Potter family all as one gave in to their curiosity and glimpsed at the man who just entered._

_Tall, elegant, with high cheekbones and reddish brown eyes, he created a picture of perfection, and the only mar on his countenance was the cold, aloof expression. Harry distinctly remembered seeing him in the Prophet, but the name must have escaped him – Harry liked pictures, not text, and only his Potions book was an exception, simply because it allowed him to experiment as well._

"_Minister Riddle," James grunted somewhat forcefully before bowing his head in greeting. _

_Acacia pressed her lips and repeated the motion, and Harry stared starry-eyed at the man: anyone who could make her bow was his idol._

"_James Potter." The man's – Riddle's – voice was a pleasant baritone that sent shivers down Harry's spine. The boy drew his robes tighter around him. "I suppose even tramps need to dress up sometimes."_

_James's hand sneaked to his pocket, where Harry knew his father held his wand._

_Not good. Harry's father was strong, and the boy didn't want that man to get hurt._

"_What is your name?" he called out from the stool. Riddle's gaze shifted to him, heavy, and Harry barely resisted the urge to squirm or duck his head. _

"_Harry!" James reprimanded, his eye flashing with evident displeasure._

_Riddle shot him a partly amused, partly condescending look, advancing forwards, just where a suddenly nervous Harry stood._

"_Never cared enough to educate your son about the strong figures of the contemporary world?" he mused aloud and tapped his chin with a thin finger. A golden ring perched upon it drew Harry's attention immediately. It was glinting beautifully, and the black stone somehow... called out to him._

_Harry squelched the urge to step down from the stool and take it in his hands._

"_Harry is still young. He has his entire life ahead of him," James returned with a sharp look in Madame Malkin's direction. Wordlessly understanding him, the woman moved to take the robes off Harry and Lavender and stick them into a shopping bag. "And the influential people of today have the tendency to become the nobodies of tomorrow."_

_Riddle didn't move a brow. "Indeed. It is especially more likely to happen when the influential person in question can't hold their tongue and keep from arguing with superiors. If, say – all hypothetically, of course – Head Auror backchatted the Minister... What do you suppose would happen?"_

_The man flicked the invisible lint off his impeccable black robe, not even glancing at any of them._

_James stood there gaping like a fish before a semblance of control returned to him._

"_I wouldn't know, would I?"_

"_If you keep your temper and juvenile grudges in check, Mr. Potter, you wouldn't." Abruptly, the man's eyes found Harry's, and the boy would have taken a step back if his position allowed him."I advise you take care of your progeny, Mr. Potter. Some of them can turn out better than you think." Lips stretched into a wide smirk. "Better than anyone would think." _

_Harry's small heart drummed in his ears, flapped in his chest, and acted so loud and so alive the boy thought it would escape his body._

_Someone believed in him._

_The first person to not even glance at his half-sister but at him, Harry._

{**Design Your Universe**}

"Your ice cream is melting, sir," came a kind elderly voice. Harry looked up to see Florean Fortescue smiling down at him. He forced a smile onto his face.

"Thank you. Just got lost in thoughts."

The elderly wizard winked at him. "It happens, dear. If you want to, another ice-cream will be on me."

"Thank you," Harry repeated and shook his head, just as smile on his face grew more natural at the offer. "Have to go now. Your wonderful treat has kept me here for too long already."

After paying, Harry flounced out of the parlour and weaved through the crowd of wizards in the direction of Gringotts, which loomed over the alley in its white-marbled magnificence. The goblins at the entrance were as unfriendly as ever and shot him an evil eye when he asked to see the goblin responsible for the transportation to Avalon, just like Binns had told him to do.

As it turned out, his luck was at it again: the goblin assigned was the same goblin whose head Harry had grabbed in a fit of rage the other day. Or, at least, seemed to be the same: Harry never really cared to discern the faint differences between goblins.

"Mr. Potter." The creature inclined its head in a semi-greeting. "To what do I owe the dubious pleasure?"

"A portkey to Avalon," Harry said shortly, reaching his bag where he kept his matchstick-sized trunk and pouch with all the remaining money. "Seven galleons, right?"

Strangely, the goblin only smirked. No reluctance to carry out the order, no malicious vibes.

Harry's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"That would be it, Mr. Potter."

Harry handed the money, which the little creature grabbed in a second and pocketed in his red uniform immediately. The grin that stretched on his face was frightening: toothy and shark-like.

"I hope you enjoy your journey."

These words were uttered, and a whirlwind of colours and sensations, all different, from tingling to nauseating to painful, swept him away to terra incognita.

{**Design Your Universe**}

AN: Just before any of you makes assumptions, no, Harry won't cater to Tom in this fic. Their relationship will be rather rocky, and no amount of obsession on Harry's part can change that.


	3. Chapter 3 Who Says Welcomes Must Be Warm

AN: This chapter should have been posted two weeks ago, but then I broke my wrist... *flinch* So yeah. Also, it is one of those hair-pulling info-dump chapters (at least partly), so I spent a lot of time brainstorming a way to avoid making the whole thing too boring.

A huge thanks to Shoujixyo-chan who's beta'd this chapter! You have all my appreciation, love ;)

Warning: the second scene in this chapter has a change of POV. It's easy to discern, but here's the warning anyway.

THANK YOU to everyone who has reviewed, faved, followed, or plain liked the story. Frankly, I didn't expect to get more than several readers, what's with the wild AU thing, but your support warms my heart immensely!

* * *

Chapter 3. Who Says Welcomes Must Be Warm?

* * *

_I'm going to kill that blundering creature!_ Harry's mind hissed when the unwelcome portkey-induced whirlwind catapulted him onto a stony surface. He fell in a heap at the abrupt landing. Apparition and portkeys hardly startled Harry anymore, because he often covered distances with those two tools, but visiting Avalon apparently meant breaching extra wards or some other sort of security. The process had felt longer and much more unpleasant even than usual.

As he fell, a particularly sharp stone nicked the side of Harry's hand. The teen's mood darkened as he mentally cursed the lights out of Gringotts and goblins. Wiping the tiny droplets of blood from his hand, he stood up and surveyed the panorama-

Only to stagger back in bedazzlement and fright.

His eyes met not the ordinary landscape of a typical English street. No, no, _no_. The portkey led to a vast, mirage-like square crowded with numerous apparition points and mingling... people. Except that you couldn't call a sneering bluish thing with verdant hair a person. And the same went for a weird creature with sharp claws and a tail that peeked out from the hem of a short dress, or a cackling group of werewolves, or a couple of strolling vampires sipping a gleaming burgundy liquid through the straws of their high glasses

Magical creatures, most of them.

Harry sliced the horde with a critical look, judging and calculating, fishing both for oddities and for the patterns of general behaviour adopted there, the sort he must copy to fit in. Some creatures pushed through the crowd to a crooked iron gate that loomed over their heads, some sneaked about with mischievous expressions on their faces while others carefully lurked around obviously wealthy people. Harry's sharp eye caught sight of a fair amount of hands slipping into pockets that weren't their owners'; most of the pick-pocketing hands returned with no catch grasped in them.

Harry buried his shrunken bag and wallet deeper in his own pocket. Although he had charmed them both against thievery, he knew too little of Avalon and the abilities of its inhabitants. Harry considered his spellwork superb, but not so much as to test it against the folk here.

He jolted when something prodded him in the back. Angrily and impatiently.

With a bewildered expression dancing across his face, Harry whirled around to blink at an annoyed chap. An annoyed chap with amber eyes and a snarl on his face revealing _very_ sharp teeth.

Calmly, because you don't fuck with angry werewolves, Harry stepped aside to let the other go his way. The werewolf sneered and spouted a steady onslaught of gibberish that had Harry frowning, after which he stormed off in hurry to do whatever business called for him so urgently.

_Does the bloke have a speech impediment?_ The thought coursed through Harry's mind as he stared at the retreated back. He started moving, wary of the entities around him, keeping up a mask of nonchalance and strength. Just to satisfy a fleeting curiosity, he strained his ears to listen in to a private conversation shared by the vampires with the high glasses and straws-

His heart thumped. His body chilled.

The same gibberish greeted his ears.

Panic clawed at him, but Harry refused to succumb to it.

He didn't have any proof that _everyone_ talked that way in Avalon. Maybe it was a silencing ward- _no, those would have simply muted all sound, not letting anything in, not letting anything out._ Harry's mind reeled. _A privacy ward? Then again, it simply smudges the sounds, thus creating this effect, but here I can clearly hear each word and each sound, decipher it and discern it; it's not like that werewolf put up a privacy ward earlier. I would have felt it-_

He drifted closer to a few more people who didn't have the glimmer of silencing wards floating about. Sometimes he didn't have to struggle to hear them: a bunch of werewolves nearby shouted loud enough and the flock of normal-looking girls with red markings all over their bodies saw nothing wrong with raucous laughs and yells and teasing either.

Desperation wrapped itself around him like a mantle as Harry realised that he recognised no word of their speech. He mechanically advanced forward towards the iron gate.

Harry's imagination visualised more and more scenarios of how bad things would get if he were really stuck there without a means of escape and no language skills to speak of. An interpreter? A nice solution, but not for him. He didn't know where to search, where to start, what to pay with or how to communicate with the interpreter.

And that left somehow finding the way to Senex all by himself. No signs. No asking strangers. No handy tourist guides for humans.

Harry inhaled. Exhaled. He repeated the process several times, again and again, until panic loosened its grasp on him and carefully retreated to the darkest corner of his mind that Occlumency shielded. The panic shared its living space with terror, guilt, jealousy, hatred and all and other negative emotions that barred his way up the climbing ladder.

Now that the cool returned, some part of that search excited him. He regarded it as a small adventure to take his mind off his trouble, except that at the end of that adventure awaited the promise of reward and something of a solution, so Harry satisfied his more practical part with the guaranteed result and usefulness of the endeavour. Other humans travelled to Avalon, too, and probably found Senex by themselves. Harry refused to be inferior to them.

Making up his mind and trusting his instincts, Harry proceeded out of the square that hosted all the apparition points and into the great unknown.

Could he hope that a sign would point him to a right direction?

{**Design Your Universe**}

He was quietly reading a tome on Ancient Runes when a familiar jolt of magic tugged at his core. His eyes widened. _They_ had trained him to recognise that particular alluring pull ever since he had been a small child, drilling into him the instructions and the course of actions he needed to take to satisfy _them_.

Slowly, his lips pulled apart to reveal fanged teeth, just as anticipation trilled in his ears.

Ah, he couldn't wait!

The man got to his feet in a single fluid motion, putting aside the dog-eared book that no longer fulfilled any purpose. Runes were his expertise. There was nothing new in the book, nothing more to learn.

Walking up to the nearest mirror, he carefully examined the reflection that stared back at him, the same predatory smirk and a dangerous gleam in its eyes. The chances of him meeting that brat today of all days? Pfft. _Null_, he snorted. Still, a little bit of care never hurt.

He smoothed out the wrinkles on his robes, tucked a stray lock of black hair behind his ear, and absently cast a charm to liven up the sickly pallor of his skin. Did his fangs glisten enough? He should probably bathe them in some blood later – unnecessary but worked wonders for the white colour. And the shine, don't forget the shine. Wouldn't want to make a poor impression on the brat.

A twinge of irritation left a sour taste in the man's mouth.

...Why did that brat drop on him all of a sudden? He had to make connections and to mingle, further his goals and broaden the horizons of his knowledge, not play a babysitter to a sacrificial lamb! What was the point of caring for the boy when they would off him in the end? Wouldn't it be more merciful if _they _killed him quickly and without unnecessary betrayals?

He frowned at his own thoughts. He wasn't going soft. He surely was not.

The brat arrived earlier than that woman had predicted. Much earlier. But he never looked a gift horse in the mouth when it presented him with such a perfect opportunity to finish this whole business sooner. His mistake, maybe, but he didn't invest himself in this whole enterprise as much as the others. Probably because he didn't need _their_ aid in the end. Some more political clout, some help in securing his inheritance... Without any regrets or guilt, he weaselled out of the consequences as if slicing through butter – with ease and a mocking laugh, no assistance required.

And when he completed _his_ part of the deal-

A laugh, exhilarated and manic, bubbled out of his throat.

-he would break all ties with _them_, reap the reward, and enjoy the benefits of leadership over his kin.

Wiping off all traces of his amusement and anticipation from his face, he straightened and strode out of his room. Perhaps he would meet the brat today, after all.

{**Design Your Universe**}

It looked like he _could_ hope, but all in vain.

Sense of adventure didn't work with Harry. The Gryffindorish rubbish his father so often indulged in just wasn't Harry's thing, and the teen drifted through the winding main street with no particular mood but a rising desire to kill someone. Preferably that Gringotts goblin, whatever that thing's name was. Occasionally, Harry spitefully considered creating a political movement fighting for human banks and the obliteration of the goblin ones-

Until his brain mockingly reminded that goblins _knew_ their business. Harry's mood soured further.

Of course, his _somewhat_ sulky frame of mind didn't prevent him from noting down the breathtaking architecture and the vast selection of goods seen through the charmed window displays; the motley attires and their exotic owners; the variety of creatures and assortment of pets, as well as the lack of trees; the unusual stone of which everything in the exhaustingly long street was made of – marble-like and creamy in colour, but with a fluid texture and flowing like water; or the tame pegasi and thestrals carrying their riders, who trotted placidly between throngs of people. No one batted an eyelash.

The sophisticated beauty of the street overwhelmed Harry. He valued and appreciated splendour and magnificence, and the overall style of the buildings amazed him: pinnacles and spires and ribbed vaults arched upwards; traceried windows of the higher floors reflected light; and high columns clustered the balconies and framed the windows. The entire image created a feel of exquisite taste and ghost-like light.

All in all, the place possessed all the finesse of Gringotts multiplied by hundreds.

He didn't venture in the shops, although he gazed longingly at the showcased trinkets. Even had he mastered the language, when he glimpsed the price tags he blanched and dread settled in: some knickknacks would dent _Malfoy's _fortune. Not that hard to believe when the shops offered bejewelled crowns, photo frames of powdered dragon tooth, wigs of unicorn hair, intricate boxes made of bone, nundu fur...

Harry deduced that the area he was walking down now specialised in expensive rarities. He hoped not the whole of Avalon would be like that.

With a frown he noticed the dwindling amount of people crowding the abnormally long street, most of them taking a turn down a modest alley between two signs of illegible symbols. Harry's curiosity urged him to go with the flow. He obeyed.

This time the path narrowed. Harry actually bumped shoulders with some people, but they scurried onwards without bothering to apologise or hear him apologise – which he wouldn't have done anyway.

The architectural style declined in its elegance, gradually morphing into buildings resembling Diagon Alley, so familiar to Harry, but not yet the filth of Knockturn. The mob of creatures was getting rowdier, too: wherein before most had been contained, now a few fights broke out, some shouting matches erupted and the shopkeepers attracted customers with trademark calls.

Harry pursed his lips at the noise and quickened his pace.

His feet carried him to a crossroads of sorts, except that it offered more choices to wander to. Harry stopped abruptly to think and to gauge his potential path.

The flow of people was mostly divided between two roads, one winding between two mighty walls of colourful shops and adorned by garlands of flowers, while the other contained a bit less people and whimsical glass buildings which Harry assumed hosted cafes and restaurants.

Less crowding? Swell. Harry moved to take that alley-

-and bumped right into a mountain of scale-covered muscle.

With a sneer, Harry recoiled from the very masculine chest and raised his eyes to stare right into his own reflection mirrored in golden-ochre eyes. The creature wore an expression of utter distaste and a pair of leather trousers – but obviously had forgotten to put on a shirt or a sweater or a robe. Harry moved away further, scandalised; wizards had a much better dress sense than that. A more _proper _dress sense.

Harry assessed the brute of a male once more. His eyes widened. Behind him, a pair of gorgeous leather wings spread out, still and mighty just like the torso with threads of almost-invisible scales running down to his- eghm, waistband.

He had glimpsed some wings before, of course, but never so closely.

Not that he wanted to now, considering how the male skewered him with a glower before barking something in that nonsensical language Harry couldn't make heads or tails of.

"Um... sorry?" Harry offered. His pride stung. Still, better his pride than his body; the male exuded a homicidal aura stronger than Snape's I-hate-you vibes.

When the creature snarled at him, growling out a threat or a warning, Harry attempted to escape. He could handle a knife and threw some good hexes, but those were miniature dragon scales, so both Harry's main weapons wouldn't work. And he preferred scientific research to fighting, so he had never bothered with spectacular duelling spells his situation begged for.

Poisons or small handy artefacts made up his arsenal. A shame, really. He hadn't pulled them out of his trunk.

Harry whirled around and prepared to run – only to have his forearm grasped painfully tight.

"Let me go, bastard!" he shouted in vain at the creature who was dragging him somewhere, probably to deal with him at a more private place. A few passers-by halted but none watched for long. Harry's wasn't the only small fight in the street.

He pulled out his wand and cast a _Stupefy_. As he had predicted, the spell lingered only for a second on the scales before it bounced off. Harry barely dodged in time. The male smirked nastily.

"_Huemath_," he mocked in his language as he tightened his hold on Harry's arm, making the younger wince and hiss in pain. The creature's hand crept to his own wand holster and Harry knew with absolute precision that he mustn't allow his opponent to use it.

Harry acted with forced calm, using probably the most powerful spell in his arsenal, the one he had seen Snape fling at a training dummy once.

"_Sectumsempra!_"

The scales yielded this time, albeit absorbed most of the damage. A thin line of dark-burgundy blood trickled out of the wound, just as the male loosened his hold on Harry and staggered back, mostly from surprise rather than pain.

Harry ripped his hand away and sped past the creature, into terra incognita, hearing shouts and angry hisses behind him. He didn't turn around to check if the creature had followed him, didn't dare stop or risk drawing out his bag with the potions he could hurl at his pursuer. _Sectumsempra _remained Harry's trump card for years and his other battle curses wouldn't breach the scales' protection.

That left conjuring objects and utilising his surroundings...

Harry preferred to run.

A few rainbow-hued spells zoomed past his rushing form, one of them – an angry puce colour, very menacing – almost nicked his left ear, while another missed his leg by a hair. Harry was fast. His was opponent even faster, and the teen knew he wouldn't be able to avoid conflict. He had a few tricks up his sleeve, but the mingling people hindered his usual duelling style.

"Well, if we can't avoid this conflict..." Harry muttered to himself, running straight into the nearest empty lane. For a second, he hoped he'd thrown the other off his tail- not so lucky. His 'tail' rushed after him.

Harry halted abruptly in the middle and spun on his heels to face his opponent, popping a shield into existence as soon as his eyes locked with murky golden ones. His panting didn't prevent him from succeeding on the first try.

The male flicked his wand to summon a bronze-coloured stream of magic that assaulted Harry's _Protego _shield before evaporating, too weak to destroy it. Smugness oozed out of Harry. _Tough luck, bastard._

Irate and tired, Harry shot all attempts at diplomacy to hell. A vicious scowl drifted across his face and Harry's eyes blazed with vengeful enjoyment as his wand pirouetted through the air in his hands.

Pants at duelling? Didn't matter when Harry had mastered Charms.

The stray pebbles on the pathway wobbled and rose up into the air. Only inches at first. Then, as sweat beaded on Harry's forehead from the intense concentration, the distance between the stones and the pavement increased. Now larger stones joined the smaller ones.

The creature must have sensed the charm at work as he hissed, but he probably didn't have the necessary knowledge to deflect it. Harry used that to his advantage.

"_Wingardium Leviosa Massima_!" He shouted the advanced charm. A wave followed by a swish completed the spell.

Letting out what sounded like a curse, Harry's opponent jumped backwards from the onslaught of rushing stones – only to stumble on a small log Harry hastily conjured. The creature tripped and fell backwards, his shaved head hitting the ground with a slight 'crack'. Harry directed another wave of stones at the male, mostly aiming for the face (which would leave awful bruises) because the skin-colour scales didn't protect it like his chest.

Harry waited. When the creature showed no sign of consciousness, he dispelled the shield and walked over to his scaled, winged opponent.

"I'm going to pop you like a pimple," Harry bit out spitefully. He raised his wand, prepared to do exactly that, when-

"I don't suppose it'd add you much popularity," a light, amused voice remarked behind him. Notes of laughter swam in it. "Attrana's looks are quite popular amongst females after all, even though he's as dim as the stones he's lying on."

Harry whirled around, a spell on his lips. His magic enveloped him in shroud of danger and fury, sizzling and sparkling round him, communicating Harry's tempestuous mood and gearing up to blow the next person to attack him to smithereens.

The stones that had rocketed into the air again fell down uselessly as the incantation died on Harry's lips at the sight of the newcomer, a girl this time, all her features human and normal.

Much smaller than himself and barefoot, she wore a periwinkle robe made of semi-transparent sparkly fabric and a single thread of nacreous beads hung from her long neck. The same threads adorned her ankles. She laughed again at his assessment, her golden hair rippling down her shaking shoulders like a cascade waterfall

"You know my language," Harry remarked calmly, coolly. He inclined his head to measure her up, but relaxed at the absence of any weapon on her. Not that people needed visible weapons to harm somebody else. "And you look human enough. Who are you?"

"They call me Nydia, and that's the name you should use." She shrugged before approaching him. Harry didn't put his wand away yet. "Not human. Just interested in your culture."

"Hmm."

She stopped right in front of him. Harry stopped himself from stepping back; he tolerated contact only when he initiated it.

"Not going to ask me how I've come upon you?" she asked lightly. Harry shook his head with a conceited smirk.

"You followed us. Don't know for how long, but I'm sure saw you at that crossroads and maybe even before that." He levelled her with a gaze. "And you obviously know this... 'Attrana' guy, but you still didn't help him, nor you are avenging him now. Why?"

"'Knowing' someone and 'knowing him well' are two diametrically opposite notions." Nydia grinned up at him. "The guy is a fellow Senex student, but they're most likely expelling him before the year starts. If he doesn't scramble enough brains to pass a couple of subjects, he's out. Besides, although draconian generally belong to the range of guys you don't muck with, he's a failure of his clan in spell-casting. Too fragile, too."

Harry eyed the fallen body with distaste – all bulk and sturdy muscle – before directing his disbelief to Nydia.

"Doesn't look 'fragile' to me," he spat, rubbing his sore forearm which had endured those steely fingers minutes before. "Wonder how he's got into Senex at all. I hear it's an educational establishment for the magically gifted, not for unstable mediocre twits who lash out at any person glancing at them wrong."

Nydia chortled in amusement. "Believe me, he's not as useless as he looks. He's got a terrific flare for handling magical creatures... and later using their skins in crafting boots, gloves, and other accessories."

"Still doesn't cancel out the fact that he's an unbalanced loon with no sense of measure." Harry sneered and prodded the body with a boot, brushing Attrana's face. Pure accident, of course.

"It's your fault that he assaulted you," she accused mildly, twisting a lock of her golden hair between her fingers. Harry swivelled his head to stare at her. "He's a draconian. They value their space... to the point of obsession, actually, so-"

"I value my personal bubble, too, but you don't see me snapping at any poor soul I stumble into." Harry's voice cut like a sharp shard of ice.

The girl shook her head, visibly exasperated. "You don't understand. You humans never do- but that's all right, I like you all the same." After a moment of hesitation she continued. "You didn't _apologise_. Draconians hang strangers who touch their skin and waltz away without even an apology. The greatest insult and all that. No wonder he was miffed. But I heard a human language and followed you here to see if you would get out of this hole you had dug for yourself."

Harry's face twisted into a grimace as he drawled in a dry voice, "I doubt you had any intention of intervening if I lost this fight."

"Let's just say he wouldn't have injured you _too_ much."

When she smiled, her eyes the colour of looming clouds sparkled, even if her lips quirked just a little. Cautiously leaning in as she beckoned him, Harry sniffed seashells and morning breeze.

"Searching for Senex, are you?" Nydia asked brightly in a lively voice that bubbled like water. If Harry wasn't already infatuated with another person, he would have fallen in love with the sound of it. Alas, her beauties and charm were lost on him. "I can assist."

He smoothly stepped away from her with a semblance of a grin. Mentally, he winced. Harry spent his free time surrounded by books or potions ingredients, but rarely people. The situation didn't improve his social skills much: while he fancied being silver-tongued and charming when a reward dangled in front of his nose, most of the time his brazen words hurt others and attracted hate.

"I'm perfectly fine, thank you," he replied warily. "Somewhat. I'm almost there, but I'd appreciate a push to the right direction no less."

Nydia burst out laughing at his response. Harry pressed his lips into a tight line; he didn't appreciate being the laughing at. It reminded too much of the memories best suppressed.

"Sorry," she forced out through the waning laughter. "You look very, very lost here. And I doubt you _truly_ want to drop by the red lights district where you're heading now."

Harry refused to flush, but failed in the endeavour. The ways of flesh flummoxed him, not least because he disliked touch and didn't see much sense in interactions. Not to mention that his life provided him a sense of fulfilment and purpose just by dumping on him mountains of trouble and scientific research to do, all without the necessity of forging relationships. Hermione, Terry, Luna, Regulus and Sirius were a lovely bonus, but, frankly, Harry easily imagined himself with no friends or relatives at all.

Tough, yes, but possible.

Perhaps that was the reason he had never hit it off with Ginny Weasley. At some point, after Lavender's nagging to 'stop being an antisocial loser and hang out with a girlfriend, for Godric's sake!', Acacia's smug remarks about his lack of attractiveness and James's saucy jokes about hot evenings with his right hand, Harry had snapped and given the whole relationship thing a try.

Ew. Ginny's fiery character and voluptuous form had attracted him at first, so their first dates had been okay. Not too pleasant, a bit stale, but okay. They would meet up at Fortescue's, where Harry would treat her to some ice cream. They would sneak to Knockturn, feed King Cobras at the magical menagerie, explore muggle London, browse books (he chose serious Charms or Runes texts, while she preferred light romance with some Quidditch in it), mock-duel and cast magic...

Those summer months had left Harry light and, dare he say it, happy.

And then _that_ started. The Touching.

Harry shuddered to remember. Awkward, revolting, oppressive, invasive... Harry would throw her hand off his shoulder, evade any and all attempts at kissing him. He fled as soon as her hand crawled down to the waistband of his trousers. Very soon, he had run out of excuses and, when she hadn't relented in her assault, snapped and outright yelled that her assets appealed to him as much as piles of goo, and he would rather shag the Giant Squid because at least that creature didn't have a mouth.

Ginny had looked hurt.

Well, perhaps he should have chosen his words more carefully. Talk about painful breakups. That day, Harry had acquired a whole family of devout haters and an even greater dislike of touching.

So, no, he certainly wasn't heading to a red lights district of any sort. Creatures or not.

"Where is Senex then?" he asked neutrally instead, fed up with the memories and the talk. Adventurer at heart, Harry chiefly loved visiting new places, exploring, seeing. Not so much when his stomach growled every now and again, and his feet burned with pain after the long walk. "Mind showing me?"

The girl cocked her head to regard him with a grin on her face.

"Hmm... Oh, I just might," Nydia exclaimed finally with a nod to herself before deflating. "Wait, we're in Avalon, so it would be weird to show you and let you off the hook without any sort of payment... People will look at me weirdly."

Harry immediately tensed. If she belonged to the fairy-folk, she could hoodwink him without a second thought, so the idea of going along with a dubious deal didn't thrill him in the slightest. A compromise, then? His terms, obviously.

"People will not have to know," Harry tested carefully. He edged away from her, just in case. "And you're going to Senex now anyway. One passenger in apparition – and we can part ways. It's not like I'm demanding you show me around the place."

Nydia shook her head, shaking her finger in the air and refusing his deal. "Tut, tut, tut. Won't work. It's Senex, everyone always knows things, and they'd watch me funny. How about..." She paused for a second, deep in thought, and looked Harry up and down. "You're human, right?"

Harry nodded. His shoulders retained their stiffness; he heard that while the creatures which resided in Avalon hated humans less than in his home realm, some purists still spouted idiocy about killing wizards off and bagging the Human Realm for themselves, as an extension of Avalon.

What if the girl was one of those loonies?

"A human living in the Human Realm... Ah, a plenty of possibilities! But I think I'll go along with simple information-trade."

Harry raised an eyebrow. Didn't sound too bad. Depending on the information, of course – if it was nothing personal, he could handle it.

"What sort of information are we talking about? Nothing private, I hope," Harry warned her, his tone lowering to a silky almost-whisper, and a gorgeous smirk spread upon his lips. Sometimes, when Harry pulled a seductive-charmer card with his facial features and voice alone, he got what he wanted. No touching required, of course.

"Relax, human. Your life interests me as much as the routine of a flobberworm." She grinned. "No, I'm talking about the general knowledge here. I like your realm, I like human lifestyle, I like your magic."

"So, you want some bits and pieces of the info on our way of life," Harry summarised with a frown. He hadn't expected to hear so much enthusiasm about humans in her voice. Were the books lying?

"Got it in one!"

"Why not move there? If it fascinates you so much, then the logical course of action would be to witness things first-hand. Then you wouldn't have to roam the streets in search of a stumbling, lost human to coax a chunk of knowledge out of him," Harry pointed out, his eyes flashing with distrust. His face remained impassive, but he counted it a victory when Nydia shrunk and wiped that annoying sunbeam smile off her face.

"Humans don't share this enthrallment by other races." She nibbled on her lower lip. "I'll end up either in a ghetto or on the dissection table in your wizarding hospital as soon as someone whiffs that I'm a nymph."

Harry blinked. Oh. A nymph, then. Unlike vampires and werewolves, nymphs hardly ever resided in the Human World, probably all as afraid of the reaction as the girl in front of him was, and so he hardly possessed any information on them.

Generally pretty, rambunctious and fun-loving, flighty in love, fair-weather friends and deceptive allies – the fairy tales and almost fictional texts provided that information only. Harry acknowledged them as potential tricky buggers, but preferred to preserve his judgement until later, when he contacted closer with the representatives of that race.

Still, the warning of their unreliable nature rang in Harry's head, and he forcefully sharpened all his senses. When he threw a look at her, her exotic blue-violet eyes stared clearly back, no trace of deceit in them.

"Side-apparating me to Senex can't be that difficult," Harry finally drawled, fussing with the locket hanging down his neck. Its cool surface encouraged him to display the same cool in his judgement and decision-making. "So, I'll give you three pieces of information, will answer three questions about the Human Realm."

The nymph bristled and immediately protested, "This is ridiculous! Three question? Hah! The books will tell me more!"

"Why aren't you a Human-Realm expert if those books can tell you everything then?" Harry raised an eyebrow and mocked further, "Or perhaps there is another reason? For instance, I've read that nymphs don't have much magic in them, so maybe apparating is such a chore for you that it'll require a week of re-charging?" He tsked.

"You-!" she attempted to hiss but failed. Nydia watched his unrelenting, cold stare and eventually nodded. Harry's lips pulled apart to reveal a smile full of teeth. He didn't much care about how many questions she asked – bargaining was the principle of the matter, like Regulus Black had taught him. "Fine! Only because your elusive native realm fascinates me so much and the books don't give much away."

Harry nodded with a triumphant air draping him. If he had not calculated the extent of her little obsession, he wouldn't have risked the only willing helper storming away in fury, but his instincts never failed him.

On the other hand-

"I have a better deal."

"Oh?" She blinked. "Let's hear it then."

"I will answer any of your questions about my native realm as long as you satisfy my curiosity about Avalon." Harry raised a daring eyebrow. "It can be a start of a beautiful partnership. We're both happy this way, no?"

"What about the adjoining realms?" the nymph asked, nibbling on her lip.

Harry frowned in reply. He didn't want to come across as _ignorant_, so he drawled, "Avalon will do," making a mental note to look it up in the dictionary.

"All right," Nydia relented after a few moments of deep thinking. Her hand grasped the delicate fabric of her robe before she released the material and motioned for Harry to grasp her arm. "I think it might be useful. Remember though, no personal questions."

Harry snorted and quoted, "Your life interests me as much as the routine of a flobberworm."

Another whirlwind of colour for the day swept away her bright grin.

{**Design Your Universe**}

When Harry landed again, this time his hand was clutching a wet coldness he realised was Nydia's arm. He released it quickly. Looking around, his eyesight immediately alighted on the sight of a fortress-like castle in front of them. It humbled and inspired fear, all hard lines and the aura of ancient power. Like Hogwarts in a way, but more... vicious. More war-hungry.

Harry heard Merlin himself had built it to protect himself in that land of creatures. The fortress confirmed it.

Nydia tugged on the sleeve of his simple black robe.

"Come. To request the needed application forms you must go to Deputy Headmaster's office," she urged him as they entered the intricate metal double doors, which revealed a grand hall not unlike that of Hogwarts. The familiar archways and similar staircases soothed Harry, making him feel more at home.

"Although the man will likely redirect you to one of his assistants... Oh well, potential assistants, since everyone wants to Apprentice under him and prove themselves by being handy – which of course he uses, draining them of everything, and then boots them out of his office."

"Sounds charming," Harry drawled, not really concerned. He doubted the man would ensnare _him_ enough to lower himself to a slavish submission.

"Yeah. I'll show you to him. You'll feel the _real _thing." Nydia giggled again.

"Of course you will." Harry flicked lint off his robe. "You're my guide until you learn about the Human Realm."

Judging by the structure of the building and a few peeks into the windows, Harry assumed that Senex was built like an immense circle with a vast inner courtyard, probably even larger than the school itself. Harry also glimpsed a few structures _inside_ that circle of the main building – dorms, Nydia explained to him.

"I hear you can take the exams and, with a bit of luck, spend the evening of the same day arranging furniture and unpacking," Harry stated as they walked past a couple of human-like creatures with tails. "I'd like that. To be accepted as soon as possible."

He simply didn't have enough money to rent for more than a few days, and that was another reason he had chosen Senex – another school sounded tempting but offered no dorms.

Nydia threw him a disinterested look.

"Oh yes, the entrance exams are a blast; they go for an hour at most, because they judge your knowledge with a few convenient mind spells that reveal the level you've mastered in this or that area. You spend much more time choosing the subjects."

Harry hummed in agreement. So far, everything went like he had predicted.

...Well, aside from loony draconians attempting to kill him for _touching_.

Harry glanced away from Nydia to sweep the almost empty halls with a look. Only occasionally would a pair of people or a lone figure walk into his field of vision.

"Is it always this silent? Not that I mind, of course." Harry actually closed his eyes in bliss, his mind already lost in the fantasy of a school where he could actually study without raucous laughter filling the halls, without annoyances and idiots around. His bubble burst at Nydia's laughter.

"Silent? That's the word you never use for Senex!" she squeezed out through her fit of giggles. When she calmed down, the nymph swept her mass of golden curls back with her hand under Harry's unimpressed stare. "Savour this peace and quiet because it won't last long. The only reason for this peace is the semi-finals of Great Senex Duelling Tournament. Everyone is vying for the chance of catching the eye of a potential ally, betting, training, acquainting themselves with new duelling styles and techniques..." She paused. "The final duels are held in a week. You should go, really. If nothing else, you'll see who you shouldn't fuck with."

Harry inclined his head in acknowledgement, even though he had promised himself to go before she had pointed out the benefit. His Ravenclaw curiosity was never sated, after all, and this was the perfect chance to see the power Senex so flaunted, to experience first-hand the sight of great duels and new magicks...

Harry licked his lips. Excitement bubbled in his chest.

Nydia threw him a knowing look.

"You might find a protector there, too."

Harry turned his head to regard her closely from beneath his thick black eyelashes.

"I've read about this system of protectors and favours in Senex. The authors all blundered the explanations though, so in the end I didn't learn much. Care to elaborate?"

Nydia watched him tersely before nodding, although she didn't have a choice in the matter; she had promised to ease him into Senex by providing the necessary titbits of information.

"Most people assume our school to be of the 'look-at-me-once-and-your-intestines-will-end-up-o n-the-nearest-fence' type. It is not. We're not Malmorence University." Visible shudders ran down her spine and Harry watched as she embraced her creamy shoulders.

"It's tough there, I witnessed it once- but we're not about that," Nydia interrupted herself firmly with a shake of her head. "In Avalon, in most public areas it is actually prohibited to attack other students"

"Oh? So, I can enjoy my meal or go to the lavatory without the threat of ending up lying cold and dead with my head in my plate or stuck into the toilet bowl?" Harry grimaced in disgust at the last bit. Nydia smiled at him and nodded.

"Classrooms, the gym, duelling arenas – those are mostly safe, too. Your room has a basic ward on it, but the faculty encourage you to enhance it with your own protective charms and to add several layers of wards. The kills here are personal, so you are safe for now; no one goes around plotting the death of an unassuming little first-year human."

"Attrana," Harry deadpanned.

Nydia waved his concerns off. "Others don't generally respect him. A plenty of girls want to go out with him – you've seen his looks! Real macho eye-candy – but few would join him in a scheme if you rise in their eyes by your academic achievements. And you've destroyed him in a duel once, so I doubt he will be as reckless and rash with you now. Attacking a draconian with stones requires _guts_!"

Harry ignored the words his paranoia didn't allow him to believe in, instead addressing her line from before.

"So you're telling me that all I read actually doesn't matter because in reality Senex is a fluffy school where people don't attack you until you attack them, give you out warnings before stabbing you in the back, and don't act out of envy or antipathy?" he drawled in a dubious tone.

The nymph held a finger to her mouth, her smile luring him in with its secretive nature and dark allure.

Harry shivered.

"I never told that either. We just believe in quiet assassinations off the school grounds. When we are not busy with projects and activities, of course."

As she said that, they stopped in front of a set of double doors with a platinum plaque that read '_Deputy Headmaster, Vesperus Jude'_.

{**Design Your Universe**}

I've always found it weird how in all the other-school stories I've read all people from other realms suddenly speak in proper Queen's English...


End file.
